A major challenge facing today’s business managers is keeping employees focused on the business goals at hand. As a manager or owner of a practice, big or small, it’s always a stretch to find new ways to help your employees keep their eye on the ball. If this is a problem in your practice, you might want to consider establishing the Parking Lot process to help your employees focus on your business’ organizational goals.

Think of the Parking Lot as a staging area for projects that are not purposefully being addressed in your practice. These projects can run the gamut from upgrading computer technology to improving customer service needs or launching new products. Hopefully, the Parking Lot process will help employees stay focused on current projects while gently reminding them that other projects are not to be actively worked on at this time.

Here’s how project Parking Lot can work for your practice. The Parking Lot needs to be visible so people can refer to it easily. A bulletin board is a good tool to illustrate your Parking Lot and remember to position it somewhere prominently so all your employees have easy access to it.

You can start out by listing the percent of time and effort that your practice is allocating to the basic, day-to-day business at hand. For arguments sake, let’s say this comprises about 75 percent of your business activity. Next, list the projects that the practice has prioritized to be actively worked on and enumerate the percent of time and effort planned for these initiatives. If 75 percent represents your base business activity, then that leaves 25 percent of the practice’s resources planned for your Parking Lot projects.

Next to the approved goals, start the Parking Lot for projects and ideas that do not have a “driver” (project leader) to lead the effort which will begin once the current projects are completed. This way, people can see that their project is in the Parking Lot and will be considered when resources (people, time and money) are available.

Once those resources come online, review the Parking Lot to determine exactly which projects your practice should focus on next. This exercise helps reduce the number of personal pet projects associates like to work on and often do not align with the overall goals and objectives of the practice.

If used correctly, the Parking Lot process can help improve your practice’s ability to execute by being purposeful and keeping everyone focused on the base business and the most important projects at hand. So if you’d like to get your practice in gear, consider this management tool. Here’s an example of how you can set up your Parking Lot.

Example Parking Lot

• Base Business 75%
• Current Projects 25%
• 2007 Annual Plan    
• Test new systems upgrade
• Implement new OSHA requirements
• Review current leases for cost savings
• Develop customer recall program
• Purge old patient files

• Parking Lot
• Develop training materials for new software rollout
• Update Web site     
• Test direct mail campaign
• Review commission and bonus structure
• Reduce costs for supplies, phone and shipping
• Remodel office/stores        
• Benchmark best practices for health benefits
• Training for new product launch
• Customer satisfaction survey

If employee turnover rates in your practice are high, it's probably time to focus on what you can do to increase employee retention.
Excessive turnover can have negative consequences for your practice, including lost productivity, costs associated with hiring a new employee, the cost of temporary employees or overtime to cover the workload of the person who left the practice, and new employee orientation and training. As well, high turnover can mean the loss of valuable skills, experience and patient relationships.

So what can you do to increase your employee retention? Here are a few tips.

--Hedley Lawson, Jr.

HR Policy Management

While we might prefer to eliminate the need for bureaucracy and excessive policies to govern what one may call using good judgment and common sense in the workplace, written policies and procedures are necessary to keep businesses consistent, fair, and legal. And should an employee elect to file a complaint with a regulatory agency or a in civil court, one of the first items you're likely to be asked is whether you had a policy on the matter. Being able to say "yes" is the foundation of a strong defense.

While that may be true, we can also understand why policies may never be written in a small optical practice.

Because each word may be critical in a legal situation, just drafting policies is a challenge.

Prewritten policies are available through a variety of sources. On the other hand, you may choose to develop and revise your policies “in-house.”  In either case, look to these two key points before you select a path that best suits your practice:

• If you choose to use an outside service or consultant, make sure your policies are periodically reviewed and updated. With the continuous changes in law, you should consider staying current with federal and state statutory changes, or developments that emerge from courts, to periodically update your policies. Information is readily available through federal and state web sites as well as through your local chamber of commerce or trade association.

OR

• If you elect to develop and revise your policies “in-house,” make sure your policies are time-tested, current and complete. Ensure your policies are written for and comply with current legal circumstances. An outdated policy manual is as bad as not having one at all.

--Hedley Lawson, Jr.